
SOUTHERN PACIFIC 



SOUTH BR N PACIFIC 



REPRESENTATIVES PASSENGER DEPARTMENT 

Chas. S. Fee, Passenger Traffic Manager San Francisco, Cal. 

JAS. HoRSBURGH, Jr., General Passenger Agent San Francisco. Cal. 

R. A. Donaldson, Assistant General Passenger Agent San Francisco, Cal. 

H. R. Judah, Assistant General Passenger Agent San Francisco, Cal. 

Paul Shoup. Assistant General Passenger Agent San Francisco, Cal. 

T. A. Graham, Assistant General Passenger Agent Los Angeles, Cal. 

Wm. McMurray, General Passenger Agent, Oregon Lines Portland, Ore. 

J. M. Scott, Assistant General Passenger Agent. Oregon Lines Portland, Ore. 

D. E. Burley, General Passenger Agent, Lines East of Sparks Salt Lake City, Utah 

D. S. Spencer Assistant Gen. Pass. Agent, Lines East of Sparks Salt Lake City, Utah 

Thos. J. Anderson, General Passenger Agent, G.H. & S. A. Ry. Houston, Texas 

Jos. Hellen, General Passenger Agent, T. & N. O. R. R. Houston, Texas 

F. E. Batturs, General Passenger Agent, M. L. & T. R. R New Orleans, La. 

M. O. BiCKNELL, General Passenger Agent, Sonora Ry Tucson, Arizona 

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DISTRICT, GENERAL AND TRAVELING AGENTS 

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San Diego, Cal.— F. M. Frye, Commercial Agent 901 Fifth Street 

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San JosK, Cal.— E. Shillingsburg, Dist. Pass, and Freight Agt 40 E. Santa Clara Street 

Seattle, Wash.— E. E. Ellis, General Agent 619 First Avenue 

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Syracuse, N. Y.— P\ T. Brooks, New York State Agent 212 West Washington Street 

Tacoma, Wash.— Robt. Lee. Agent 1108 Pacific Avenue 

Tucson, Ariz.— E. G. Humphrey, District Passenger and 1-reight Agent 

Washington, D. C— A J. Posto'n Gen.Agt.Washinglon-Sunset Route,5ii PennsyKania Av. 
Hong Kong, China— T. D. McKay,General Passenger Agent, S. F, O. R. 



Rudolph Falck. General European Passenger Agent, Amerikahaus, 25, 27 Ferdinand Stras.se, 
Hamburg, Germany; 49 Leadenhall Street, London. E. C. England; 15 Pall Mall, 
London, W. C, England; 25 Water Street, Liverpool, England; iiS Wynhaven S. S., 
Rotterdam, Netherlands; 11 Rue Chapelle de Grace, Antwerp, Belgium; 39 Rue St. 
Augustin, Paris, France. 



Rings and Rem Canyons 

and the Giant Forest 

of 
California 



By A. J. WEllS 



m^ 



San Francisco 
1907 



I l^ ^^ u 



.S5W39 




KINGS RIVER CANYON 



This great gorge is on the South Fork of the Kings River, 
in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, about 100 miles southeast of 
Yosemite Valley. John Muir has called it "a second Yosemite," 
and Professor J. D. Whitney said of it that "it strongly resem- 
bles Yosemite in some of its grand features." 1 went to see it 
with some misgivings, unwilling to admit that the glorious Val- 
ley had a rival, but, climbing down the steep trail which leads 
to the foot of the canyon, its beauty and grandeur grew upon 
me, and when I had ridden to camp between its towering 
granite walls and beside its silvery river, I was forced to con- 
fess that Yosemite was not exceptional in its greatness. The 
Kings Canyon curves but little, so that the view is unobstructed, 
and you are reminded often of Inspiration Point. The great 
precipices of naked granite slope away at a high angle, and the 
tine wide meadows, the scattering groves of pine and cedar, the 
dashing and turbulent river, with dark depths and placid green 
pools and roaring white cascades, and the lofty and forested 
mountain slopes back of the canyon walls, make an impressive 
picture. Save in places, the walls are not so sheer and so con- 
tinuous as in Yosemite, and the magnificent waterfalls are lack- 
ing, but the Canyon itself is vaster, and if the streams and falls, 
the canyons and mountain peaks immediately adjacent be in- 
cluded, the region is as interesting and attractive as Yosemite. 
Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, even 
says that Kings River Canyon "is bigger, wider, with higher 
walls which slope out of sight, and the mountains into which it 
rises are far wilder and more stupendous." And the late Dr. 
Joseph Le Conte said the Kings River Canyon "belongs to the 
same type as Yosemite, i. e., a valley with vertical walls and a 
flat floor, as contrasted with the usual V-shaped valleys of 
mountains generally. In Kings River the walls are equally high 
and equally vertical, and the floor similarly, though not equally 
flat." Elsewhere Dr. Le Conte says that "barring the wonderful 
waterfalls," the view from the Grand Lookout "will compare 
well with that of Yosemite from Inspiration Point or Eagle 
Point." 

You approach the canyon through a wilder and more beau- 
tiful region. The scenery is a constant delight, the silent forest 
full of interest, and every summit as you climb out of the 
canyons is crowned with surprises. You are exploring; it is a 
new country that lies before you ; jou are with the first adven- 




Glacier Monument. 



turous party in the primeval forest, and every mile has its 
charm, its revelations of tree and rock, of stream and canyon, 
and glimpses of far-off snowy summits, over seas of verdure. 

"Effort, and expectation, and desire — 
And something evermore about to be," 

keeps you alert, sustained, unwearied, until you stand at the 
Grand Outlook, and the great huge canyon lies at your feet. 
Climbing down the three-mile zigzag trail, during which you 
descend 3,300 feet, you have such glimpses of the meadows, the 
park-like trees, the shining river and the enclosing mighty 
walls that you forget how rugged the trail was in absorption 
of the glory of the vision that opens before you. 

Then the ride up the floor of the canyon — that splendid fur- 
row plowed by the glacier — through flowers and meadows, by 
lines of lateral moraines, among incense cedars and sugar pines, 
and beside smooth, hard granite walls lifted defiantly to the 
heavens 3,000 to 3,500 feet high, while the river, three times the 
volume of the Merced, shouts as if glad of its escape into sun- 
shine out of the dark canyons where it was born — what sur- 
prises the ride has, and what enjoyment! You must be a vet- 



eran of the mountains if you can make that journey for the 
fi..t time without a tumult of emotion — or a crick in your neck 
from looking up. 

It is part of the spurious culture of today to be, or affect to 
be, proof against surprise, and to stifle emotion as a mark of 
crudeness, but happy the man who keeps fresh the founts of 
feeling in the presence of great Nature. He will enjoy these 
vast solitudes, and not be ashamed if the very greatness and 
splendor of what he sees wrings a cry of admiring wonder from 
his lips. Dr. Le Conte, critical, scholarly, inured to scenes of 
grandeur in the mountains, says of his experiences in this re- 
gion : "The trail becomes steeper and rougher, cascades and 
falls more frequent and more beautiful, and the scenery grander 
and more impressive, until finally as we approached the summit 
I could not refrain from screaming with delight." 

Standing on the narrow shelf at the summit of Mt. Stan- 
ford (9,175 ft.), overlooking the canyon, and 14,000 feet above 
the sea. Dr. Jordan once said: "I have never seen a more 
magnificent mountain panorama. I have seen the mountains of 
this continent from Alaska to Mexico, and I have tramped 
many mountain miles in the Alps, but such a comprehensive 
view of mountain masses and peaks and amphitheaters and can- 
yons, of all the details of mountain sculpture on the tremendous 
scale that we are looking on now, I have never before seen." 




East Lake, near Mt. B reive 




East Jldctfr, Biibbs Creek 



This is the glory of the Kings River Canyon — its magnifi- 
cent setting. It lies embedded in the grandest mountains — the 
very culminating summits of the Sierra. Here are the Cali- 
fornian Alps. Here, at the rim of the giant cliffs which enclose 
the secluded valley, the mountains may be said to begin, and 
they sweep upward on both sides from 7,000 to 10,000 feet 
above the river. The dominating peaks of the Sierra are closely 
clustered here, the ridges are densely forested ; there are count- 
less clear trout streams flowing through green meadows ; glacial 
lakes, the "eyes of the landscape," are very numerous, while at 
the very crest of the mountain range we look over the wall 
into Nevada, 8,000 feet below us, but only 10 miles away. The 
opulent western slope takes from 60 to 70 miles to climb up 
14,000 feet ; the eastern rock wall plunges abruptly down with 
a grade of 1,000 feet to the mile. 

In this region Mt. Wliitney is tlie highest peak, 14,502 
feet; but Mt. Williamson is scarcely lower (14,500 feet); Mt. 
Tyndall's slender summit is 14,386 feet in the air; ]\It. Jordan 
is 14,275; the slender Milestone is about 14,000, and the great 
Kaweahs 13.752, while Junction Peak, Crag Ericsson, Crag- 
Reflection, Mt. Brewer, the University of California Peak and 
others are only a little short of 14,000 feet. To the north. 



along the main crest of the range, are Striped Mountain, 13,248 ; 
Split Mountain. 14,146; Middle Palisade, 14,070; Mt. Sill, 14,198; 
Haeckel, 13,500; Darwin, 13,854; Humphreys, 14,055 feet, and 
lesser peaks below the crest. Further west are Charvbdis, 
13,158; Scylla, 13,018, and Mt. Goddard, 13,602 feet, and un- 
named groups of peaks which no foot has climbed. It is a 
wilderness of lofty summits — the Alps of a region that will one 
day be famous. 

From several of these great peaks Owens Valley, on the 
east of the range, can be seen, the farms appearing like squares 




Grand Sentinel, Looking up Kings River. 



On a checker board, and 10,000 feet below the town of Inde- 
pendence, Inyo County, appears in the midst of green alfalfa 
fields. The nearer foreground from almost any of the great 
summits of this region, is filled with savage chasms and a 
mighty array of snowy peaks and clear, emerald lakelets scat- 
tered all about, with here and there a glacier or a glacial 
meadow further down, and a foaming stream. The view from 
Alta Peak, a day's travel southward, I found full of interest, 
and to those who are equal to the harder climbing, the summits 
of Whitney or Tyndall or Mt. Stanford will show scenes of 
unparalleled grandeur. 





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Grand Sentinel, Kings River. 




TJic Floor of tlic Canyon. 



This, \vc repeat, is the setting in which Kings River 
Canyon is forever fixed— the scenic gold which holds the gem of 
the Southern Sierra. The canyon is really a valley, and im- 
presses one as Yosemite does, at once with its beauty and its 
grandeur. The floor is nearly flat, sloping from the north 



enough to keep the river always on the lower side. There are 
some detached rocks, dropped by the river of ice long ago, but 
for the most part the seven-mile ride up the valley shows alter- 
nate meadows and forest spread out in park-like beauty. When 
John Muir first saw the region, it was a vast flower garden. 
It is still a Garden of the Gods. 

A CAMP IN Tliis camp may be your own, or it may be 
Tur r AN VON ^^^^ °"^ established at Copper Creek. Here 
THE C A INYO IN Kanawyers Camp provides good meals and 
beds, and the two or three cabins will give you the shelter of 
a roof, or, if you prefer, you may occupy a tent, or put your 
cot out under the stars. 

Over against your camp will be the Grand Sentinel, a ma- 
jestic granite rock splendidly colored, and 3,500 feet high, with 
the river singing at its base, and the view up or down the 
canyon is one to stir a poet or an artist. 

From Copper Creek as a base of supplies various excursions 
can be made, some on foot in a few hours, some on horseback 
requiring days. Thus you may explore the recesses of Paradise 
Canyon as far as Mist Falls, or visit Roaring River Pool for a 
delightful view and a good catch of trout. The stream in the 
one case tumbles over a series of inclines, and in the other 
excitedly plunges through an opening in the solid rock into a 
wide green pool. Roaring River comes into the canyon about 
half way from the lower end to the camp, and its course is 
marked on the maps, "Impassable Gorge." What Mr. Muir calls 
"booming cascades" must be in that gorge, a good sized river 
getting down over 3,000 feet without ever once being shaken 
"loose and free in the air to complete the glory of this grandest 
of Yosemites." 

PARADISE This is made by Kings River as it comes 

down from the north, beating its way for 
CAIN YO IN miles in a chain of cascades and falls, roar- 

ing, tossing, surging, filling the canyon with its tumult. The 
walls rise from 3,000 to 5,000 feet, and about 8 miles up stand 
back and make room for charming meadows and gravelly flats. 
It is a place of great solitude, but the meadow, one grand 
waterfall and several smaller ones, makes the solitude musical. 

BUBBS Leaving Paradise Canyon on the left, we may 

P___,- go up Bubbs Creek for a long excursion. It is 

a trail often rugged, and keeps close to a creek 
full of big fishing pools, falls and cascades, and the music of 
the tumbling white torrent that has worn its way into the heart 
of the granite rocks. The trail leads to Kearsarge Pass, where 
the mighty continental divide is thrust up to an elevation of 
12.056 feet at its lowest point, a score of sharp peaks cutting the 
sky line far above the pass, while between rush the streams or 
gleam the icy lakes born of storms and snow^s and glaciers. 
Vidette Meadow is a beautiful camping place overlooked by 

10 



two splendid peaks, North and South Vidctte. A glorious place 
is Lake Bryanthus, where the mountain splendor seems to cul- 
minate. Here the view of Mt. Brewer is magnificent, while the 
fine outlines of East and West Videttes, the pinnacled and 
splintered peaks of Kearsarge, the conical and symmetrical form 
of University Peak, the huge bulk of Stanford, and the loftier 
summit of Mt. Keith, Charlotte Peak with Charlotte Lak« at its 
foot — all are embraced in the view. 

Kearsarge Pass is two miles beyond Lake Bryanthus, the 
highest of all the Sierra passes. It is the sharp edge of the 
mountain range — the rocky backbone of the Sierras, so narrow 
that your horse strides it standing on both sides of the range 
at once. It is worth the long climb to stand here on this divid- 
ing ridge and look down the steep eastern wall to where Owens 
Valley lies spread out like a map, while around you tower the 
great mountain masses with sharp peaks, the summit crests of 
the continent, full of an awful fascination. 



TEHIPITE 
VALLEY 



This will well repay a visit. It is on the 
Middle Fork of the Kings River, and the trip 
will require from three to five days. The 
valley is the Yosemite of the Middle Fork, and is about three 
miles long, with walls from 2,500 to 4,000 feet high. Several 
small cascades spring from a great height and sing and shine 
on the canyon walls, one seen from the front seeming a nearly 
continuous fall about 2,000 feet high. A grander fall is called 
Tehipite, and challenges instantaneous attention and admiration. 




University Peak, beyond Lake Bryanthus. 






Camping in Cedar Grove. 



As a thing imbued with life, the sparkling water seems to hesitate 
at the Hp of the fall 1,800 feet above you, and then, like a torrent 
of molten silver, plunges headlong down, flashing back the sun- 
light, shattered here and there into spray amid which rainbows 
dance, and at last, gathering its forces once more, springs to a 
final leap of 400 feet over a sheer precipice into a beautiful pool, 
fit bath for Diana and her nymphs. 

The Tehipite Dome, towering above the foaming river, its 
truncated cone, not unlike that of Liberty Cap in the Yosemite, 
sparkling in the sunshine against the clear turquoise of the sky, 
should not be overlooked and, with the Tehipite Pinnacles, is worth 
traveling far to see. The reward of such a trip is not, moreover, 
all at the journey's end, the way leads through the everchanging, 
the bewildering beauties of the High Sierras, by surging streams, 
through shady forest groves, by rocky defile and park-like spaces 
where a myriad blooms gild your own and your horse's feet with 
pollen dust and make every breath inhaled of the fragrant upland 
air, a delight. There are trout to catch on the way, and the 
choicest of places for the noonday halt or the night encampment. 
The mystery of Nature seems not to awe, but welcome, as you 
penetrate deeper into these solitudes and learn more of her ways 
and wonders. Tehipite Valley itself, sunny and smiling amid its 
romantic setting, retains all its wild simplicity and is very beautiful. 



12 




The Tehipite Dome. 



THE GIANT FOREST 

The Sequoia National Park is the most extensive of the 
Forest Parks of CaHfornia now under the protection of the 
United States Government. Jt consists of seven townships, 
bounded on the east by the High Sierra, on the north by 
Kings River, and on the south by Kern River, and it is guarded 
by a troop of cavalry. 

Elsewhere in the State the great trees exist in detached 
groups or small groves, but on this lower southern slope of the 
range, and below its highest peaks, they are growing in true 
forest form, being fairly continuous over an area of 8 or 10 
miles long by half as wide. This is the real Giant Forest, the 
only one in the world that in the fullest sense deserves the 
name. Yet the sequoia does not here grow apart, constituting 
a forest of its own ; it is found among the sugar and yellow 
pines, the red and silver firs, and the incense cedars, and walk- 
ing through the silent aisles it is a joy to come upon a family 
of the Sequoias, the dark cinnamon brown or red of the fluted 
trunks in strong contrast with the gray of the pine trunks and 
the green of the foliage. 

From some high point on the trail you look over a sea of 
verdure, billowy, but silent, as the mountainous waves sink or 
rise with the undulations of the land, and in the vast expanse 
the eye quickly learns to locate the giants of the forest by their 
loftier stature, and the shape of the great rounded dome that 
swells above the green canopy, and to tell where the real forest 
of sequoias sweeps along ridges, rise out of the deep canyons, 
or camps on sunny plateaus. Mountaineers say there are more 
than 5,000 of these giants over 15 feet in diameter and from 200 
to 300 feet high, and many thousand more of lesser girth. It 
is indeed a forest of giants, dispersed over many miles and 
sociably growing with trees of shorter pedigree and less dig- 
nity. "The king of all the conifers of the world," John Muir 
says, and he describes them as extending across the basins of 




On the Trail. 




General Sherman, Giant Forest. 

the Kaweah and Tiile Rivers in noble forests, broken only by 
deep canyons. "Advancing southward, the giants become more 
and more irrepressibly exuberant, heaving thtir massive crowns 
into the sky from every ridge and slope." It is a picture to be 
cherished by every lover of these great trees. If they are to 
survive on these sunny western mountains — if our descendants, 
10.000 years hence, are to see them repeating their long history 
and displaying their majestic beauty on these lofty plateaus, and 
on the borders of these deep canyons, it will be because they are 
"irrepressibly exuberant" in this magnificent forest, and resow 




Tlic High Sierra from Mount Rixford. 

themselves in the moister shadows and in the sunny openings, 
the tender younghng springing up beside the venerable patriarch, 
and platoons of saplings crowding up the slopes which the elders 
have deserted. It adds to one's joy in this forest to see these 
young Sequoias. Professor Asa Gray looked at the giants in 
Calaveras Grove and said, "Thev will not hold their own" ; but 




Trout lurk in the pools and rapids of Kings River. 




the distinguished botanist never saw the Giant Forest, nor these 
"plantations of God" renewing their youth over miles of splen- 
did territory, and bidding fair for immortality here in "the most 
glorious and beautiful region of America," or he would not 
have sighed over the dearth of seedlings in the frequented and 
trampled grove. 







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The older trees impress you with a sense of personahty. 
They are so great as at times to be oppressive, and you creep 
about among them as an insect. At other times they stir your 
reverence, and without affectation you are ready to stand bare 
headed before them and to abjure all shams and pretenses. 
They stir your imagination ; you picture them dispersed, before 
the Age of _ Ice, over several continents, and after that long 
winter, surviving here alone on this California mountain side, 
and you wonder why in the Creation's scheme all the world, 
except California, should be left without an idea of what a tree 




Road to Moro Rock, Giant Forest. 



^TME KETTtC 




^yr THE GIANT FOREST AND VICINITY 

Reproduced ar perhission from map by prof j.nije coNTE.copyRiGMT tsoo 



may be — how great, how beautiful and stately in form, how 
unexampled in duration of life, and you think of the vigorous 
tree by your side as alive when the ]\Iaster was born in Bethle- 
hem, as tossing its green branches in the summer air when 
Joseph was ruling Egypt, or exuberant with young life when 
Helen was carried away from Troy. The age of these trees 
is variously estimated at from 5,000 to 8,000 years. The average 
size of a full grown tree, favorably situated, is given by Mr. 
Muir as 275 feet high and 29 feet diameter near the ground. 
Specimens 25 feet in diameter, he says, are not rare, and a few 
are nearly 300 feet high. "The largest I have yet met in my 
wanderings is a majestic old monument in the Kings River 
forest. It is 35 feet 8 inches in diameter inside the bark, four 
feet from the ground." The shape of these trees is as striking 

19 



as their size. Look at them! What grace, what proportion, 
what poise! They taper slowly, and a limb rarely breaks out 
below 100 feet, and the great fluted pillar would adorn a temple 
of the gods. The instep of the tree is adjusted to its bulk, and 
is not excessive, and the tree stands squarely over its own cen- 
ter of gravity. The foliage is scanty. A tree that must lift its 




In the Giant Forest. 




Mist Falls. 



Roarinv River Falls. 



head 300 — in a few cases 325 and even 375 — feet in the air, and 
wrestle with the storms of 5,000 years, cannot carry full sail. 
The root system is not extensive, and does not penetrate deeply. 
It is not sufficient to account for the wonderful growth of the 
tree, which is believed to feed upon the air through the papery 
lamination of its bark. The bark is often thick, but excessively 
so only in the case of a few trees. I have met one familiar 
with the Giant Forest who thinks that a distinct variety of the 
Sequoia bears thick bark, and of many examined I have found 
none where the bark approximated two feet. A large propor- 
tion show bark but five or six inches thick. The specimens ex- 
hibited in curio stores are exceptional. The sequoia's cousin, or 
nearest relative, is the S. scmpervircns or redwood of the Coast. 
A tree of more distant kinship is the swamp cypress of the 
Southern Atlantic Coast, itself also a survival of the glacial age, 
and the only other surviving relative is the Glypfostrobus of 
China, a modified form of the cypress (taxodium) . 

It is not easy to account for the survival of the Big Trees 
on this western slope of the Sierras, but this is certain: they 
are connoisseurs of climate, and grow where it is neither cold 
nor hot, but in a mid-region, where sunshine is abundant, but 
tempered by elevation, and where the cold of winter is modified 
by proximity to the valley, and where the snow when it falls 
is both mantle and moisture. You can confidently make a sum- 
mer camp where the sequoia grows, for the climate is simply 
ideal, w:hile the forest is open and sunny, never damp or with 
a musty odor of decay. It is a country fashioned so magnifi- 
cently, painted so vividly, watered so abundantly, its scenery so 
commanding and beautiful, its primeval fastnesses so little dis- 
turbed, and its climate so nearly perfect, as to make it an ideal 
place for a vacation for those who enjoy nature in her own wild 
gardens. The whole region — the canyon and the forest — is 
destined to become as famous in its way as the better known 
Yosemite Valley, with a wider range of interesting points ac- 
cessible from a central camp. 




Sunrise un Brxanthus Lake. 



THE CAMP IN Near the lower end of the Sequoia National 
Park, at Round Meadow, is Camp Sierra. 
THE FOREST j^ j^ ^^^^jj established and reached directly 
by stage from Lemon Cove. Located in the very midst of the 
great trees, Camp Sierra may be a point of departure for many 
delightful days. Here the party or the individual may be equally 
at home, and excursions may be made on foot or by the pack 
and saddle train with a guide. The trails are numerous and 
easily trodden, and will lend themselves to solitary enjoyment, 
if one wishes to be alone among these giants of other ages. 
The tallest tree in the forest is said to measure 340 feet. We 
measured one fallen tree, which spans beautiful Crescent 
^leadow, and estimating the length of the top, which was gone, 
made it 310 feet. We measured the "Gen. Sherman" beside the 
trail and found it 80 ft. in girth eight feet above the ground. 
We called attention to the fact that "Roosevelt" was not a very 
large tree. A colored trooper, who stood by, instantly said : 
"But the tree is young. It will grow." 

The trails are marked by these great fluted columns, alive in 
every twig and fibre, and the oldest apparently good for some 
thousands of years yet to come. 

Moro Rock, Crescent Meadow, the Sherman Tree, the Mar- 
ble Fork of the Kaweah, and Sunset Rock are favorite short 
excursions. A picnic on Moro Rock, with its perpendicular face 
of 2000 feet, is an easy tramp by a charming trail. From Sunset 
Rock may be seen the Marble Canyon, the San Joaquin Valley 
and the Coast Range faintly outlined. In the Marble Fork you 
will find yourself looking straight down the vertical face of 
rocks into emerald pools you can not reach with your longest 
lines. A longer excursion will take you to Alta Meadows, and 
the feeblest can climb Alta Peak, 11,522 feet. From its summit 
we enjoyed a splendid panorama of peaks and canyons. Few of 
the higher peaks offer a wider range of vision. The meadows, 
with grass and flowers, good water and a group of trees under 
which to camp, are immediately at the foot of the peak, and you 
pluck a bouquet of flowers as you go up in August, and on the 
summit take a hand at snowballing with the zest of other days. 

The streams here are the Marble and Middle Forks of the 
Kaweah River. Both are fine mountain streams, clear, flowing 
swiftly, with deep pools and small falls — ideal places for trout 
to lie. Both can be reached from camp on foot, with no diffi- 
culty to daunt a fly-fisher. 

Otlicr excursions are to Kern Canyon, the trail over Fare- 
well Gap in plain sight from Alta Meadows, and to Kings Can- 
yon and home by Grant National Park, if you like. It is an 
enchanting region, and from the camp as a base you may spend 
the summer without a dull day. 

24 



" ■i' NATIONAL ! 
1 PARK I 

i/LAKE s'tquoiA 




HUCKlEBESBY _ 

VAL LEV ,■ MEADOW 



t^.„> -I, \ 

MEADOWS <p — ' 


-...--'Ix 

^^ •RATTLESNAKE SPR. 


■•.';r,KENNEDY 

• .i?A,. ,..,^».^«-:)""''°" 


s.^dll'i/-'-- 


""""t^^ 




/WESTONS 


/ ^^ '*^- 



Broder and Hopping's Camp has 10x12 tents, with floors, 
spring cots and comfortable furnishings, a good kitchen and 
large tent dining room. A clear stream of cold water rmis 
through the camp, and the Big Trees stand all about the 
grounds. At night a large camp-fire is made under the trees, 
and seats provided for guests. A good table is set and the place 
is made as homelike as possible, while having the freedom of 
out-of-doors. Mail is carried on every stage and the stages land 
passengers directly in the camp. Picnic and excursion parties 
are amply provisioned. The guides are competent cooks, and 
blankets are provided for camping out. Good food, cleanhness 
and comfort are aimed at. Rates at Camp Sierra are $2.00 per 
day, or $50.00 per month. Improvements will be made each 
season, and the needs and comforts of guests carefully looked 
after. Located in the midst of the greatest forest in the world, 
the grandeur of the trees, the mountains and canyons, the beauty 
of the meadows, the wild gardens and flowers offer attractions 
hard to equal. 

The carpet of brown pine needles, the sparkling mountain 
streams, the clear vistas, notable for absence of underbrush, the 
marvelous climate, the exhilarating atmosphere of these 6000 
feet of altitude, make the camps in the greatest wood of the 
world a summer paradise. 

Sleeping out-of-doors is a new pleasure to many, and a 
pleasant experience to the amateur. One lies drowsing, listen- 



ing, breathing fragrant, 
spruce pine, while, 



soothing balms and the smell of the 



"Bubble, bubble flows the stream. 
Like an old tune through a dream. 



25 



KERN RIVER CANYON 



In some respects this is the greatest of the mountain can- 
yons. It is full thirty miles in length, and its cliffs are precipi- 
tous and many colored. It is separated from Kings River 
Canyon hy what is known as the Kings-Kern Divide, a sharp, 
narrow, irregular crest as high as the main Sierra, from which 
it turns at right angles to the west. In it are some of the 
highest peaks of the range. The route may be left undescribed 
and subject to choice; you may go from Copper Creek Camp 
or from Camp Sierra in the Great Forest. Either of the two 
routes available will have many perpendicular miles and a very 
surfeit of wild scenery. 

Professor Barton W. Everman of the Bureau of Eisheries 
says : "The great Kern River Canyon, for sublimity as well as 
beauty of scenery, rivals the Yosemite." The head waters of the 
river are among the group of stupendous peaks from Table 
Mountain in the Great Western Divide eastward to Mount 
Whitney. The stream runs almost exactly due south for more 
than twenty-eight miles and is described as "a rift valley and 
erosional trough." 

Professor J. S. Hittell, who went from the Giant Forest by 
way of Mineral King and Farewell Gap, says : 'T never before 
saw such scenery and magnificent mountain landscapes as I wit- 
nessed on this trip. They probably equal in rugged beauty any- 
thing of the kind in the world." 

The floor of the canyon is made up of forest and meadow, 
and the clear, cold river rushes between walls from 3000 to 6000 
feet high. The stream is alive with gamy trout, untroubled 
save by a few adventurous fishermen. They reach a weight 
of five pounds and over and are beautifully colored. Here, in 
what is known as Volcano Creek, is the original home of the 
golden trout. Professor Everman calls it a "marvelously beau- 
tiful trout." Did you ever catch one, and in an ecstasy of en- 
joyment of its beauty lay it tenderly on the grass to note its 
brilliant golden glow in the sunshine? 

In Upper Kern Lake will also be found gamey trout of 
large size. They are supposed to live well, as they scorn decep- 
tive lures and will rise only to a real grasshopper. 

The lower lake has warmer water, in which one may 
swim delectably, may paddle among the lily-pads in an old 
dug-out, or from the divide l)etween the two lakes feast his 
eyes on pictures which would delight an artist. It is said that 
William Keith found little to tempt his brush in all the High 
Sierra country until he came into Kern Canyon. The canyon 
walls, the dark pine, waving willow and sedgy margin of this 
blue mountain lake he has interpreted nobly. 

At the head of the canyon the river rushes in broad sweeps 



over an inclined granite wall, while ten miles below two cas- 
cading creeks come in, one from the southerly side of Mt. 
Whitney, the other from the glaciers under the Kaweah Peaks. 
Up the latter are found falls, cascades, rock-bound lakes and 
glacier-polished slopes — all very interesting and impressive. 

The walls of the canyon are of incredible height and their 
polishing tells of ancient glaciers, the canyon floor is beauti- 
fully forested, and the river is companionable and rich in pic- 
tures which we can but enjoy and must carry away with us as 
abiding souvenirs. 

Mount Whitney may be reached and climbed from Kern 
Canyon, though the route leads through some rugged country. 
Whitney was long regarded as the summit of the continent, 
but later measurements have reduced the height credited to 
this peak. Clarence King describes Mount Whitney as "spring- 
ing up and out like the prow of a sharp ocean steamer," and 
the Sierras here as "a bold wall, crowned by sharp turrets 
having a tendency to lean out over the eastern gulf." If the 
right point of attack is chosen, the great peak is easily 
climbed, and once upon the top the toil upward is gloriously 
rewarded. Save to the west, where the Great Western Divide 
closes the prospect, the view is magnificent. We have another 
and clear impression of the difference between the two sides 
of the Sierra. On the west a long slope of more than forty 
miles in a direct line merging in the foothills of the San 
Joaquin ; eastward, lower mountains but no foothills. Below 
the rim of Whitney a vast precipice, then a leap of ridge and 
canyon, and sight drops away ten thousand feet to Owens 
River Valley. Northwest you can see Mount Williamson and 
beyond Mount Brewer and its great compeers of the Kings 
River country, and still beyond the great bulk of Mount God- 
dard. 




Oil Trail to East Lake 



The Way to Kings River Canyon 

Kings River Canyon is reached by the Kings River Stage 
and Transportation Company from VisaHa. R. H. Gallagher is 
manager. The Southern Pacific will drop you at Visalia ; you 
will stop over night at a comfortable hotel, and early next 
morning will leave on the Kings River stage. The route is 
interesting and the journey easily made between 6:00 a. m. and 
5 :30 p. m. 

After a night's rest at Millwood Hotel, saddle horses and 
the pack trains await you, with Copper Creek as the objective 
point. The route takes you at once into Grant National Park, 
where stand many fine Sequoias and where lies the famous tree 
through which you can ride on horseback, emerging at a knot 
hole. We found a full-sized bed standing across the diameter 
of this fallen tree and rode past the foot of the bed without 
difficulty. This tree is much decayed and has evidently been 
down for centuries. The Park contains 125 great trees, the 
largest of which is called General Grant. You will note its 
great size as indicated by the 40-foot board fastened across its 
front. Above the great cypress-like knees, however, the body 
of the trunk is symmetrical and measures about ninety feet in 
circumference. 

On the trail via Boulder Creek you will find another group 
of Big Trees and will note one standing dead from base to 
crown — the only instance known of a Sequoia dying a natural 
death. They do not die, nor even decay as other trees. Fallen, 
they waste away for what seems easily a thousand years, and 
living they are not the prey of insects nor the victims of disease. 
This tree has plainly starved to death. In the rocky ravine 
where it stands it found inadequate soil and moisture, and 
perished, the white trunk and bare limbs looking like a skeleton 
tree, but standing erect as a soldier saluting and keeping in 
death a pathetic dignity of its own. 

Even fire, the destroyer, finds his power diminished here. 
Ravaged by flame, fresh shoots, new foliage will soon be spring- 
ing from what seems a calcined ruin. 

The Park is a great, wild garden and at its upper line the 
devastation of the forest by the millmen who have passed leaving 
waste and ruin in their trail, marks forcibly the beauties of the 
reservation, while it calls forth an involuntary thanks for the pro- 
tection of the area. 

The first day by the trail takes you to Horse Corral and by 
4 :30 p. m. the next day you are in camp at Copper Creek in the 
heart of the Canyon. The trail can be taken by any good 
walker, or managed on the back of sure-footed horses by those 
who are not robust. It is not a rough ride. The scenery is a 
constant delight, the silent forest full of surprises, and the camp 

28 



the first night out under the pines, on the edge of a charming 
meadow, with sweet, cool water trickhng through the grass, will 
long linger as a pleasant memory. The stars come out and seem, 
as you lie prone, resting completely on the broad bosom of Mother 
Earth; hung like fairy tapers in the branches above. The night 
winds murmur a lullaby, a good digestion waits an appetite ap- 
peased and soon comes peaceful oblivion, refreshing sleep. An 
appropriation was made by the last legislature to build a road 
to the canyon, which will, when completed, add to the charm of 
the trip. 




^*>aVa~ *- 



KINGS RIVER CANON 

SHOWING TRAIl/ PROM THE GIANT FOREST 

61ANT FOREST REPaOQucED BY PERMISSiON FROM MAP BV PROFJ.M.LE CONTl, COPYRIGHT 1900 



29 



Daily Schedule between Visalia and Millwood 



Stations Outward Trip 


Miles 






Single Trip Rate 


Lv. Visalia 

Ar. Staffords 

Ar. Aukland 

Ar. Badger* 

Ar. Millwood 


o 

i8 
25 
35 
55 


6:00 a. m, 
7:30 a. m. 
10:00 a. m, 
11:30 a. m. 
5:00 p. m. 


Daily 


$1.00 
2.50 

3.50 
5.00 



Stations Inward Trip 


Miles 




Single Trip Rate 


Lv. Millwood 

Ar. Badger 

Ar. Aukland 

Ar. Staffords * 



20 
30 

37 
55 


6:00 a. m. 
8:00 a. m. 
9:00 a. m. 
1:00 p. m. 
3:30 p. m. 


Daily |3-50 

2.50 

1.50 

" 1 .00 


Ar. Visalia 










*Stop for Lunch 

The rate from San Francisco to General Grant National 
Park and return is $19.40, and from San Francisco to Copper 
Creek and return is $26.00. 

The uniform rate for meals after leaving Visalia is fifty 
cents, save where a rate is secured by the week or month or 
for the trip. Camp rate, including meals, is $2.00 per day, but 
lower rates are made for guests remaining for any length of 
time. 

For parties desiring to camp out in the canyon, transporta- 
tion of persons and camping outfit will be provided from Mill- 
wood to Copper Creek and return for $7.00; a day and a half 
going, and a day and a half returning. Additional transportation 
will be provided at the rate of $2.50 a day, including meals and 
camp, to any part of the region. The hire of guide will be 
extra as noted. Special rates will be made for large parties. 

It should be noticed that the Grant Forest can be reached 
from the canyon, and that parties going first to the forest can 
take the trail also to the canyon ; that is to say, you can go 
in one way and return another. 

The Way to the Giant Forest 



GIANT 
FOREST 



Ts reached by Rroder and Hopping's stage line 
from Lemon Cove Tuesdays, Thursdays and 
Saturdays. A hotel at Lemon Cove provides for 
the first night and rooms will be reserved upon notice. The 
mountain road is one of tlie l)cst in the State, and, hugging 

30 



the north hillsides, has much coolness and shade under oaks and 
maples, the last twelve miles being in the pines. There is no 
trail riding or packing on the way, the stages going at once 
into Camp Sierra at Round Meadow over the Government road. 
Then you are shut in l)y such a forest as can be seen nowhere 
else in the world. 

Giant Forest Via Exeter and Lemon Cove 

Lv. Visalia 6:15 a.m. 10:40 a.m. 4:54 p.m. 

Ar. Exeter 6 :43 a. m. 10 :57 a. m. 5 :16 p. m. 

Lv. Exeter 6 :50 a. m. 1 1 :05 a. m. 5 :22 p. m. 

Ar. Lemon Cove 7 :15 a. m. 11 :33 a. m. 5 :47 p. m. 

The connection for Giant Forest this season is via the Visa- 
lia Electric Railroad to Lemon Cove from Exeter. The stage 
trip has been shortened by about twenty miles, so that now 
one travels only thirty-nine miles, over a good road, a portion 
of which was built by government, and is one of the finest 
mountain roads in the country. 

Regular stages leave Lemon Cove three times a week — 
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 6:00 a. m., but await the 
7:15 a. m. train when so notified. Special stages also will be 
run on other days if the number (five people) offers, and notice 
is duly given in advance. June, July, August and September is 
the season to visit the forest and mountains. 

The trip to Giant Forest is pleasantly diversified — canyon 
scenery, with striking glimpses now and then of the high peaks 
in the distance, Alta, Silliman and the Kaweahs. It takes about 
eleven hours to make the stage trip, and the cost each way 
from Lemon Cove to the forest is $6.50, or $12.00 round trip. 

At Sierra Camp, in the midst of the forest, one meets a 
most cordial hospitality ; cots in tents kept scrupulously clean 
by a tidy housekeeper, and good meals served in a pleasant 





f 




*'< "^ tMHSHJI^B 


1 '*»?£ ' 




•*^%aM^^ 








^ 

^ 



Lake Charlotte. 



dining-room. Every evening a rousing camp-fire blazes and 
good cheer and fellowship prevail. Board at camp, $2.00 a day, 
$12.00 a week. 

Excellent pack animals and guides may be engaged for the 
High Sierras, Kings River and Kern Canyons at reasonable 
rates. 

The vacation season at Giant Forest is delightful. If you 
have anyone wishing to visit this great region, you rnay assure 
them they will find their anticipations more than realized. 

How to Get to Kern Canyon 

This wild region may be reached from Camp Sierra or from 
Lone Pine on the Nevada side of the range. Adventurous 
parties may make their way down from the Kings River region 
past Mount Stanford and among the giant peaks around the 
head waters of the Kern River, but a well-marked trail addi= 
much to the comfort in the High Sierra. The Hockett Trail 
from near Lone Pine is well known and will be generally used 
from Nevada, but from the California side the best route is 
from the Giant Forest over Farewell Gap via Mineral King. 
Arrangements can be made from Camp Sierra. 

Only Personal Belongings Needed 

Part of the comfort of such a trip as we have outlined 
is that everything is provided. You take but your personal 
belongings, and on the stage, on the trail, at the camps, every- 
where, you are amply and fully furnished. 

Food is abundant and well cooked, extra blankets are at 
hand, horses are gentle, and every want is anticipated. You need 
only take your satchel as for a railway journey. 

The Tehipite sheet of the United States Geological Survey's 
atlas will be found very valuable and costs but live cents. Pro- 
fessor J. N. Le Conte, of the University of California, has also 
mapped this region in great detail. 

The heart of the Sierra holds nothing more attractive than 
the great gorge of the Kings River, the Kern River, and the 
Grand Forest. 

For a midsummer outing it offers more beauty of land- 
scape, more variety of rock sculpture, more sublimity of canyon 
walls and mountain peak and cliff, more fascination of forest 
and meadow and glacial lake, and more enjoyment for the 
sportsman in trout pools and streams of almost virgin water, 
more beauty of the wild and aboriginal than any other section 
of the great range. 

The fine photographs used in illustration of this booklet 
were taken by Messrs. H. C. Tibbitts and Edward T. Parsons 

Questions will be answered and more specific information 
given by Agents of the Southern Pacific at Visalia and Sanger, 
or by the Information Bureau, 884 Market St., San Francisco. 

32 



SOUTHEIRN PaCIFIO Pu B LI C ATI O N S 



The following: books descriptive of the different sections of country named, have been 
prepared with great care from notes and data gathered by local agents with a special eye to 
fullness and accuracy. They are up-to-date hand-books about five by seven inches in size, 
profusely illustrated from the best photographs, and from a series invaluable to the tourist, 
the settler and the investor. They will be sent to any address postage paid, on receipt of 
four cents each. 

The Sacramento Valley of California, 96 pages, 5 x 7 in. 

The San Joaquin Valley of California, 96 pages, 5 x 7 in. 

The Coast Country of California, 96 pages, 5 x 7 in. 

California South of Tehachapi, 96 pages 5x7 in. 
King and Kern Canyons and Giant Big Trees of California, 20 pages, 

Forest, 32 pages, 5x7 in. 7 x 10 in. 

Lake Tahoe and the High Sierra, 48 Wayside Notes Along the Sunset 

pages, 5 X 7 in. Route, 96 pages, 5 x 7 in. 

The New Arizona, 96 pages, 5x7 in. Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa 

The New Nevada, 80 pages, 5 x 7 in. Grove, 48 pages, 5x7 in. 



The following publications, most of which are illustrated, will be sent free of charge, 
but one cent for each in stamps should be enclosed for postage. 

Big Tree Folder Lake Tahoe Resorts, folder 

California Climatic Map, folder Oregon, Washington, Idaho 

Eat California Fruit Shasta Re.sorts, folder 

Klamath Country Yosemite Valley, folder 



Sunset Magazine — A beautifully illustrated monthly magazine deal- 
ing with land and seas west of the Rockies, 192-224 pages. Best ol 
Western stories and descriptive matter. Including magnificent premium, 
Road of a Thousand Wonders, with 120 beautiful Pacific Coast views in 
four colors. The annual subscription is $1.50. 15 cents per copy. Any 
news-stand. 



Requests should be addressed to Chas. S. Fee, Passenger Traffic Manager South- 
ern Pacific, San Francisco, Cal. 

A-160— (5-29-07) — 25m 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 




LowExcursibiindltiy 



TO 



CALIFORNIA 
MOUNTAI N 
RESORTS 

are made from the principal 
points on the Pacific Coast by 
the Southern Pacific. Each sum- 
mer, very low round-trip rates 
from all points in the East to 
and THROUGH California give 
inexpensive opportunity to visit 
the wonderful resorts of the 
Sierra Nevada. Ask or write 
any agent. 



Southern Pacific 



